


Play it Hard

by Sangerin



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-10-20
Packaged: 2018-08-23 14:01:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8330524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sangerin/pseuds/Sangerin
Summary: She never knows when she'll come up against an ex-husband who isn't happy being ex.





	

Find a mark, get what she can, get gone. 

That was the deal. Try not to go back over the same ground twice, because she never knows when she'll come up against an ex-husband who isn't happy being ex. Or who isn't happy being rather lighter in the pocket than he was before she got there.

Not going over the same ground twice includes thoughts. No point revisiting the past. Besides, the past can be a dangerous place.

*

Her parents were so pleased when she was accepted. Her mother could hardly believe that a daughter of hers might one day be a Companion. Her father saw a daughter who would never again need his support – always assuming that she was a good enough student.

She wasn't good enough – or lucky enough – to be assigned to the mother house on Sihnon. Her training occurred on one of the outer planets, but it was still a Companion training house. She sat through the same lectures on the importance of the sisterhood, of personal strength and the history of Companions and their hold on power through the centuries; she learnt the same ceremonies as girls at other houses on other planets all around the system. She became a leader of her house, learnt how to wrap women as well as men around her little finger.

She graduated with prizes and accolades, and the nickname of 'Diamond', because both her fellow students and the faculty considered her hard enough to cut glass. One of her prizes was a full establishment – house, staff, conveyances - from which to build up her trade.

Her father was vindicated. She would never again need his support.

*

She won the lottery. The grand prize. Not a client who offered to set her up as a permanent Companion – that tended to be seen as an insult by the sisterhood, although rarely seen as such by those who offered it. No – she had a client who wanted to marry her. Who pursued her and showered her with gifts. Who offered her a life of luxury without the need to work, to screen clients, to be endlessly charming and always beautifully presented.

Of course, she was still required to be charming – to her husband and his friends and associates. To be beautifully presented. To run a massive household, please her husband, be the sort of wife his position in society demanded.

It was almost more exhausting than being a licensed Companion. At least as a Companion you could take time off.

*

She pushed the idea away the first ten times it intruded. She had a comfortable life; satisfying, untroubled overall, if frustrating day by day. The idea of leaving all that behind… it didn't terrify her, because nothing terrified her. It was a challenge, certainly. Her main question was whether it would be worth it. Was directing her own life again, decided where and when she would go and stay, was it worth turning her back on certainty and comfort?

The first ten times, it wasn't.

The next ten, she thought it might be.

The next, she began to make plans.

*

There was something terribly fun about it. Reinventing herself every few months. Using every single skill to inveigle her way into a man's life, a man's bed, a man's pocket. Taking him for as much as she could get – plus some sex, especially from the handsome ones. And then head out again. Take some time – as much as the credits will allow. Find a nice, secluded planet, preferably with a beach. Hide out. Recharge. Rediscover herself before she put on another mask.

Find a mark, get what she can, get gone.

*

She should have taken her own advice. She didn't go looking for Mal, but she went looking for that Lassiter, which was looking over her shoulder, the one thing she always knew she shouldn't do.

And damn, it hurt that it was one of the sisterhood who finally ran her to ground.


End file.
